Madonna, right, performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl XLVI football game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Madonna, right, performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl XLVI football game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots Sunday, Feb. 5, 2012, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Photo: Paul Sancya, Associated Press

Oakland assembles team for last-ditch stadium plan

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Cash-strapped Oakland is on the verge of putting up $3 million for the designers of Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis - site of Sunday's Super Bowl - to work their magic and come up with a new stadium and sports complex out at the Coliseum.

After a lengthy competition among six groups, city staffers have selected Indy stadium designer HKS Inc., JRDV Architects of Oakland and mall and condo builders Forest City Enterprises to create a plan for the 750 acres that make up the Coliseum site and the neighboring new-tech development area west of Interstate 880.

The $3 million would come from money that the city's recently disbanded Redevelopment Agency doesn't have to return to the state.

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"The strength of the team we are going to bring forward to the (City) Council is an indicator of how real this project is," said Assistant City Administrator Fred Blackwell.

Blackwell hopes to have the exploratory deal before the council by the end of the month.

The fast track also underscores how tenuous Oakland's pro sports future is - what with the A's trying to move to San Jose, the Warriors thinking of jumping the bay to San Francisco and the Raiders making noises about moving to Los Angeles, again.

"It's like (Tom) Brady in the last play of the Super Bowl - it's a Hail Mary," said Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, who sits on the Coliseum's joint powers board.

But then, he says it's worth a shot because the $200 million that the National Football League just committed to the 49ers' planned Santa Clara stadium "can be spent in Oakland just as well as Santa Clara."

Ethics confidential: San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi finds himself in an interesting position in the MattGonzalez lawsuit affair.

Adachi, in effect, is the chief investigator, judge and jury in determining whether his good friend and chief assistant violated conflict-of-interest guidelines when - with Adachi's blessing - Gonzalez helped an outside corporate client sue the city for $16 million.

And now Adachi is heading the in-house investigation to see if there was a conflict when Gonzalez expanded his role to that of full counsel in the case.

"First we do an initial investigation," Adachi said. "If it is determined that there was a possible violation, the matter is then referred to the department head for a decision."

And it turns out all those steps will be done by Adachi himself - who is, of course, the department head.

Bad billing: As if he didn't have enough headaches already, Sheriff Ross Mirkarimicould soon find himself the topic of a billboard opposing domestic violence in San Francisco.

Kathy Black, executive director of La Casa de las Madres, is asking Web donors to pony up a total of $4,000 by Thursday to fund a billboard that would read, "Domestic violence is never a private matter."

The line is a direct reference to Mirkarimi's much-dissected comment that the New Year's Eve incident with his wife, Eliana Lopez, that led to domestic violence charges against him was "a private matter, a family matter."

Black insists the billboard broadside isn't part of any campaign to drive Mirkarimi from office - although it would be going up near a freeway in town just as his trial starts Feb. 24.

High wire: The Super Bowl turned out to be a banner day for Andy Lewis, the Bay Area native and graduate of Redwood High School in Larkspur whose high-wire high jinks stole the show in Madonna's halftime extravaganza.

Lewis was the guy doing trampoline-like acrobatics known as slacklining.

"But to all his many friends in Marin County growing up, he was just a crazy kid who was a ton of fun," says Fran Anderson, whose son grew up with Lewis. "He always had a wild, adventurous side."

Check out YouTube for some of his daredevil exploits - like dangling from a wire high over Mount Tamalpais and his walk 360 feet in the air over Utah's Moab Canyon.

Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or e-mail matierandross@sfchronicle.com.

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